hadriel | >> video.

[ He has no idea what the fuck is going on, but he knows he's never felt like this before. He's reflected on the things he regrets, of course, and he's been haunted by the choices he made in certain situations, but he carries on with the business of living well enough. He takes what he can get, what joy he can find, and he focuses on that.

So, what the fuck. ]

Anyone else feeling pretty shitty almost non-stop?

[ He has no shame in talking to people, why the hell not? He has nothing to hide in expressing his emotions, though that doesn't at all mean he's ready or willing to just confess all his sins to whoever the hell is listening right now. He's got some measure of control still. ]

I was a fucking asshole once. I get it. I know it.

But whatever this feeling is now - shit. It's this place, right? It's gotta be.

[ And he has this desperate, almost suffocating need to fix the terrible things he's done, but he can't. He's just paralyzed by this overwhelming feeling of being an irredeemable asshole. ]

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[ He holds himself back for a moment before answering. His instinct is to just be honest; he may not always give a lot of details but he's not one to shy away from his emotions in general. So if he's not okay, he's just not okay, and he's not gonna hide that fact. But on the other hand, with how he's feeling, there's a tremendous amount of guilt that comes with even the thought of opening up like that with another person, burdening anyone with his mess of a life. Fuck. This sucks.

In the end, though, he goes with his instinct. ]

No. But what the fuck can I do, you know? The people I hurt - the shit that I did - it's all back there. Back home.

[ Waiting for him. ]

Uh, well...

[She's really, really bad at this.]

Would apologizing help?

[ He's not sure what he was even looking for, really, by broadcasting to other people like he did. There are no answers anyone can give him, really. No one can give him absolution. Maybe he just wanted to talk. So by that measure, Kyna's doing just fine. ]

If I could...talk to them? If they were here right now? Fuck. I don't know. Maybe.

[ His child. The woman he left. Maybe it would help with them. But not with Daniel. God, he'd give anything to go back and stop that bomb from going off. He'd trade places with that kid in a heartbeat. He's the one who should have died, not Daniel. ]

Um... I don't know. Sometimes the gods screw around with us and it doesn't really matter what you do. You just kind of have to wait until it's over. But, uh... You know. If you want to talk about it...

All this shit in my head right now - if I tell you about it then you gotta carry it around, too.

[ Logically, he knows sometimes just getting that shit out of your own mind really does help. Like how a wound can't heal if the bullet's still inside. Gotta get the bad shit out first. So it's a nice offer and a reasonable one, but he worries it's not fair to her. Never mind that she might judge the fuck out of him; in fact, he's not even thinking about that part, mainly because he's used to people sort of recoiling when they hear the full story, so whatever, that's business as usual. But in any case, it's her he worries about more.

Of course, everything is magnified for him right now. Everything just seems so terrible. ]

[She shrugs a little. It's kind of weird to think about, but she's gotten used to people telling her their terrible secrets.]

It's okay. I'm a big girl, but you don't have to.

[ Might as well. Whatever. Normally he wouldn't divulge this much to someone he barely knows, but it's the result of whatever's going on with his emotions right now. Confessing is like some sort of twisted penance for him. ]

I killed people. Not just in combat, but contract killing. They were bad people, all of them, until my last assignment, when a kid got killed.

[That finally gets her to hesitate.]

...What do you mean, contract killing? For who?

The CIA. They wanted me to take out people who were uh, killers. Or who worked with killers. Then a fucking - a little kid got killed and I was done. I was out. My handler - it was all a fucking game to her.

Oh, Jesus. I mean, people talk shit about the CIA, but I didn't think...

[Well, she's not sure what she thought.]

I used to work for someone like that, too. It was like she didn't give a shit what happened to anyone. Did you tell your handler to go fuck herself?

She was a special kind of evil. I know good Agents, she sure as fuck wasn't one of them.

[ And someone like her just taints the good work those other Agents do. ]

We went our separate ways for a while but the next time I ran into her, I was planning on killing her. I couldn't. [ Because, ultimately, he's not a cold-blooded killer. ] But she knows what a piece of shit I think she is now.

[ So if they're swapping stories- ] Anyway. You had to deal with someone like that?

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